Those looking for the “next big thing” tend to look towards fresh-faced college grads for their Zuckerbergs or their Spiegels, and that impact is clear in the entire community’s response to that bias: An entire 43 percent of tech employees responding to one LinkedIn survey reported worrying about losing their job due to their age. Now, more stats on ageism in tech have emerged thanks to a new survey. Across August 2017, a Modis-commissioned survey garnered responses from 1,500 U.S. adults who work in the STEM field — 500 from technology, 500 from engineering, and 500 from science or medical areas. They found that nearly four in 10 STEM professionals believe that age disparity is the greatest diversity concerns their field struggles to remedy. Among only older respondents, that number rose even higher. Neither sexism in tech or ageism in tech should detract from the other problem. As Dan Lyons once wrote on the issue: The tech industry must continue to work on defeating its ageism bias in order to move forward with the more complete spectrum of experiences. Read more about tech’s diversity problems here at TechCo
